Idle dreamer
Terri wrote:
Though I suppose they could build more reservoirs.
Idle dreamer
Terri wrote:
Water in the soil is hard to drink.
Idle dreamer
Jonathan Byron wrote:
Groundwater is unavailable unless one digs a well, or finds a spring on the side of a hill.
Idle dreamer
Jonathan Byron wrote:
It all goes to words and definitions. Yes, humans can degrade the landscape - if a barren landscape is a desert, then yes. But if a desert is defined by the amount of rainfall, then no, humans have not desertified anything.
Idle dreamer
Ludi wrote:
Yes, but if watersheds are damaged, the water table is lowered until springs dry up and wells can't be dug by hand anymore. Spending vast amounts of resources on reservoirs does nothing to solve the underlying problem of watershed destruction.
Human activity has definitely "desertified" my region more than climate change has. It used to be Tallgrass and Midgrass prairie savannah here until settlers stopped the fires and overgrazed with cattle, sheep, and goats. There used to be many year-round streams and the area was known for its healthful springs. Most of the creeks are dry except in wet seasons and most of the springs are gone.
RustysDog wrote:
The original post questioned: Why would they cut/remove valuable trees?
Possibly for the same reasons that Native Americans burned entire valleys of apples and other fruits.
Idle dreamer
RustysDog wrote:
I don't recall the valley, nor tribes involved, but it was part of a PBS series that dealt with the French and Indian wars. Certain tribes aligned with the French, and others with the English, all in the name of furthering their goals in eradicating competing tribes in "their" territories. Human nature at its best (or worst).
Idle dreamer
Emerson White wrote:
Destroying a common resource is totally something that humans do (though I doubt that there were apples of significant food value in America before the Europeans planted them); ever hear the story of the american bison?
Idle dreamer
Emerson White wrote:
The "red man" is made of the same stuff as the "white man". If they were the ones with guns and swords all of Europe would be speaking Cherokee.
Idle dreamer
Emerson White wrote:
Bison don't till like pigs do. Also The Dust bowl only happened in the low rainfall area at the southern end of the great plains. The northern end was supplied with water from the great lakes and the jet stream and managed to stay lush even under monoculture.
Mekka Pakanohida wrote:
the herds of buffalo didn't till the soil as they ran from one area to another?
Idle dreamer
Mekka Pakanohida wrote:
Bison don't till? Estimates of the pre-European herd size vary from 30,000,000 to 70,000,000 & you are claiming that the herds of buffalo didn't till the soil as they ran from one area to another?
Oh, and American Bison aka the buffalo was found in all 49 US continental states... ..that's a lot of mass slaughtering in the 1800's.
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Walter Jeffries wrote:I've seen several scientific articles that point to a totally non-human cause of the desertification. They time it with the up thrust of mountain ranges which changed wind patterns which in turn changed rainfall patters as well as the change in tilt of the earth which also changed weather patterns and rainfall patterns. The earth does wobble and the timing of the changes in the Sahara fit this perfectly. The mountains do up thrust and they do change wind patterns. Man has nothing to do with either of these things. There is a politically correct tendency to blame humanity for everything. This misses the real point of fixing what we can fix and do effect. Earth Day is a scam that makes people feel good by turning their lights out for an hour when they should be making a difference all year. Don't get sucked in by this sort of thing.
The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings. - Masanobu Fukuoka
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